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borndied
1577, Feb 81640, Jan 25
an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Seagrave in Leicestershire. Melancholy was responsible, according to Burton and others, for the wild passions and despairs of lovers, the agonies and ecstasies of religious devotees, the frenzies of madmen, and the studious abstraction exemplified by scholars such as Shakespeare or Milton. He wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression.
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 Dictionary Citations (5) • View in Dictionary
Calamist: A piper. From Latin calamus, reed, which is used in English as the name of various reeds and rushes, especi...
Fustilugs: A fat, frowzy woman (fusty, mouldy + lugs, implying heavy). John Burton in THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY (1621)...
Merdaille: The rabble. Used in the 14th century. The ending means a heap, a group; similarly canaille, the rabble, mea...
Ob: (1) A wizard. Hebrew obh, a necromancer. (2) Short for obolus, a Roman coin; used in English of a halfpenny...
Stound: This common early form is a gathering of several roots and many meanings. It appears also as stund, stond, ...
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